Head of the Class: North American Universities Invest $14.7 Billion for Life Science Facility Construction

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). The landscape of college and university campuses across North America is currently undergoing a high-tech facelift. Schools in virtually every state in the union, from the smallest community colleges to Ivy League powerhouses, are investing billions of dollars to develop solid research infrastructures. It is a spending trend that has been gaining momentum over the past decade. Reinforcing the formidable strength of this trend were the results from a recent survey of all capital projects found in Industrial Info Resources’ Pharmaceutical Tracker - Online Database. The study revealed 277 currently active university and college-based capital projects, all representing a total investment value (TIV) of $14.75 billion dollars.

Click on the image at right to view a breakdown of these projects by region

The projects are all in various stages of planning, engineering or construction. While the average TIV of the projects is $54.5 million, in actuality they range from small lab upgrade projects worth several million dollars up to over half a billion dollars for the creation of a new life science center complex. While those states with a traditionally heavy commercial life science presence, like California and New York, have a considerable number of institutional projects, others like Iowa or Oklahoma are just as determined to make their own mark.

Virtually every one of the federal government’s planned regional biosafety and biocontainment laboratories are located on college campuses scattered across the country. Generally, the regional laboratories funded from a combination of federal grants that are matched by the school from both public and private sources.

As discussed in the 2006 Pharmaceutical-Biotech Forecast, spending from the academic sector will continue to rival that of private industry in many cases. As strong research facilities attract top scientists, who in turn attract major funding, schools of all sizes will continue to strengthen their lab capacities. With commercial development often following construction and establishment of these facilities, schools are rapidly expanding the academic offerings to include virtually every aspect of the life science field from architecture to drug development.

As with most university capital requests, it may take a few legislative sessions to get it approved, but the large majority of life science projects are eventually built.

While slower to progress from concept to reality, the development and construction of actual manufacturing facilities on campus is expected to continue. These facilities will provide the skilled, hands-on training demanded of future life science employees. Eventually, these small “plants” are expected to bring in a profit to the school, via small-scale contract manufacturing. Many schools are now enjoying the fruits of their labor in the form of profits earned on drugs discovered within university labs that were developed and later sold to the commercial sector.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a Marketing Information Service company that has been doing business for over 23 years. IIR is respected as the leader in providing comprehensive market intelligence pertaining to the industrial processing, heavy manufacturing, and energy-related industries throughout the world.